


Throwback*

by itdefiesimagination



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-08 11:17:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4302735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itdefiesimagination/pseuds/itdefiesimagination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*A memory, a dream, and/or a shared hallucination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Note:

Arrival implies some distance traveled, so perhaps he does not so much arrive at the station as simply find himself there. He is wearing a winter coat, cinched at the waist and absolutely unlike any winter coat you’ve ever seen. He carries a suitcase in each hand. It’s possible that each case is neatly packed: a rainbow of dress shirts rolled to tight cylinders of cloth and color, wedged next to a rainbow of dress socks, which are tight cylinders of cloth and color. But it’s equally possible that the cases are not neat, or that they are empty. You don’t know. You cannot see inside. 

What you can see, or what you would see if you were present in this station and not in one particular piece of one particular fiction, is something less ambiguous. (While the outward appearance of a person, place, or thing is often as intricate and sad and sprawling as the person, place, or thing it represents, this appearance is by nature a physical manifestation of that which is intricate and sad and sprawling; as such, it avoids the sort of Schrödinger’s paradox presented by both the inner self and by the maybe-neat-maybe-not cases.) If you were looking at something simpler than words on a page – a single thing representing a single purpose: a desk, maybe, or your uncle – you would understand this. If you were present, here, in this station, you would understand this. 

If you were present, here, in this station . . . if you were composed of skin and sentience as opposed to tense and sentence (don’t get excited – you are not and you are, in that order), you would see a man on a train platform, with a winter coat and two hands and two suitcases. What little else he has or does not have is of no importance to this story and will therefore go unmentioned. 

Description of the train station is of similar, negligible consequence, but if you must know, the rails are the same greenish color as the supporting columns; the supporting columns stand, latticed with frost, open to the air; and the air is cold, which is why the man is wearing a winter coat instead of a button down shirt, or a short sleeve shirt, or a casual summer dress, or a light sweater, or a pair of overalls, or a painter’s smock. He is wearing a winter coat and he waits by one of the green columns. This column in particular has been made identifiable to him by a heavy, iron number affixed to its surface. So there you go.

In the time you just took to note the (incongruous) details of the platform, you missed the (insurmountably more relevant) “arrival” of a second man. One can presume his own winter coat has been pressed free of air and folded away into his suitcase. 

  * Subnote: One case, not two.
  * Subnote: This stranger’s overcoat speaks to a certain cold tolerance unknown to the first.



And already you have come to know and like the first man more, this by virtue of his top billing in our story (narrative conventions and readers’ quirks being what they are), and by his face, which -- though creased by recognizable anxieties regarding travel and first impressions -- seems to you an easy going face. You would say a soft face, if you had the authority to do so. But you do not. You’ve never known anyone “soft” and you certainly do not know this man. Precedent forbids you from making associations you might otherwise have made.

And perhaps lack of precedent inspires your distrust for the second man. His delayed entrance means you haven’t known him for quite as long, so things are harder going between you and he.*

*You being the temporary occupant of a temporary, textual construct and he being a man of questionable existence in any and all of the realities** presented thus far.

**To clarify, these realities are as follows: the reality of the first man, the reality of the second man, and your own reality. In only one of these realities does the man who wears no winter coat actually exist. You’re not sure which. You will never be sure which.

So the uncertainty that comes with fiction puts a strain on your relationship with the second man. (We are often confused by other people, but we are confused less by our friends than our enemies.) Plus, his face is distant, soured by trivial unkindness witnessed too often. A door unheld: a pursed lip. A smile unreturned: a pinch just below the left eye. Childish mistakes met with adult laughter: a lined forehead, premature marbling of the cataracts, tight jaw. 

It could be lack of precedent inspiring an inaccurate and harsh judgement of character. 

It could be the cold. 

Regardless, the first man sets his suitcases down in order to greet the second man – two hands grasping one, two hands shaking one. You think this gesture is warmer than the second man deserves, but you are wrong. You think a lot of things, and you are wrong about most of them. 

You imagine there must be trains (one train at least). You imagine a platform and you imagine two men on that platform and you imagine these men must have arrived by train. You are wrong. 

 

DAY 1: SVITZ (?) 

[Our travelers find themselves on a hillside – though it’s not so much a hill as a cliff and not so much a side as a steep drop down to a valley of indeterminate size and content. It has been raining for as long as they have been walking. They have been walking for as long as comfortable memory allows.]

“– like, two to three times its normal size. Anyway, I don’t think it has anything to do with the pecans. I think my face just swells up sometimes. Ha.”

The last sound is vague, affable; it’s shaped like a laugh and, after hours of this, it’s cute and endearing in the same way a broken kneecap is cute and endearing. 

“You know, you sure can talk,” The Second Man snaps, then recoils. Either Cecil doesn’t notice his inflection or he willfully ignores it. In the grand scheme of social cues, The Second Man finds both possibilities equally horrifying. 

“I can talk, yes!” Cecil says. “Since I was a kid, actually. It’s interesting how – despite all the different methods of communication and all the different tributaries of language running off those central method streams – we’ve decided that verbal interaction is the most efficient. At the very least, it’s the perceived default, which leads to a whole lot of cultural confusion, and misunderstanding, and a general blindness toward the idea of speech as a privilege and not a biological free-space on life’s bingo card. The other night, as I was trying and failing to sleep, I began to imagine this society where everyone communicated via complicated knitting techniques. Big stitch meant ‘yes.’ Little stitch meant ‘I guess, I mean, I’ve _thought_ about it.’ Then, at the end of the day, everyone exchanged scarves with a person they wanted to get to know better. I think it’d be impractical, but f – ”

“No!” The Second Man stops and turns abruptly to face Cecil (he doesn’t want his exasperation mistaken for some polite interjection on this . . . yarn-centric utopia theory?) “No. I mean you sure talk _a lot_ ,” he corrects.

“Oh. Well, yes. But that’s partly because you don’t.”

The Second Man’s glare is involuntary and brutal. Luckily, he manages to divert it toward his map, which has been unfolded to its largest size over the course of their journey and has now become unmanageable. Rain has softened the paper and there are grooves along the sides where he’s had to grip tight for fear of losing control and murdering his guileless, excruciatingly talkative companion. 

“Oh no, no, don’t you feel self-conscious,” Cecil reassures, reaching to pat the shoulder of The Second Man, who is not so much self-conscious as cold, and lost, and annoyed. “It’s not a bad thing. It’s just that I’d rather we fill the holes in our conversation now than worry about them later. Our brains do this irritating thing where they pour insecurity and contrived misunderstanding into the spaces between words. Sometimes, those spaces are harmless, beneficial even, but our brain over-analyzes them anyway. It’s like filling a pothole with spiders instead of concrete: it doesn’t get the job done, and now life is terrifying and itchy.”

“. . . .,” says The Second Man. 

“I _would_ like to hear about you, though. No use blabbering on about my life all day if I don’t know which of my experiences relate to yours! Ha, talk about insecurity and contrived misunderstanding, right?” 

Here, Cecil’s expression falters a bit. It’s a brief lapse and, when his smile returns, its wattage is stratospheric, but there is a definite break in his cheerfulness – a dip at the corners of his mouth. With an emotion halfway between pity and something kinder, The Second Man realizes that this incessant banter, while earnest, isn’t coming naturally to Cecil . . . not all of it, at least. (The stuff about the face swelling had seemed pretty genuine.) 

This was a man trying very hard to be liked. 

“Look,” The Second Man sighs. He’s still annoyed. Of course he’s still annoyed: it’s freezing, it’s wet, and his companion has been talking in circles since they left the train station. But knowing that those circles had been for his benefit blunts his bad mood significantly. Those circles were like . . . lassos. Well-intended Lassos. Lassos that had overshot, caught around his ankles, and tripped him. 

“Look, we can talk more once we get to . . . to the place that we’re going.” He struggles again with the over-sized map. 

“House on холм,” Cecil says. 

“House on what?”

“On холм. Don’t worry, I’ve read about it. Spectacular views.” 

“If you say so.” The Second Man glances behind them. They’ve been walking a steady incline for two hours, at least – the kind of incline that sneaks up on you, beginning as flat ground and marking up by small, steady degrees until the air is thin and your breaths come labored. The terrain itself is the same terrain they encountered at the station: still rocky, still dry earth pockmarked by black weeds and the skulls of small animals, half-coated in frost. He’s not sure what kind of view could be worth this trek. He’s not sure why he trusted Cecil to choose their accommodations. He’s not sure of their destination(s), current or intended. 

And, when The Second Man turns back to the path in front of him, he’s not sure he believes what he sees. 

“There!” Cecil exclaims happily. 

He’s not wrong, because something is definitely there. Something is definitely _there_ in the same way it had definitely _not_ been there a few seconds ago. 

Where before the path had continued to snake up through the crags and crevices of the hill, a house stands. It is a small house, a shelter, with trimmings that look more suited for the seaside than a cliff face. Its siding is laid in thick, chipping slats, and its windows are hung with the ghosts of lace curtains – long the content of moths’ stomachs. (These same moths, one can presume, now live within the cushions of the wicker furniture, which has been arranged on opposite sides of the covered porch as if to promote an atmosphere of comfort and enforced solitude.) A knobby railing cordons off a covered porch and serves as the only separation between the path and the front entrance. It is too dark to see inside this entrance, but something shifts within. It is not a moth. It is not moths, plural. 

These are easy details. Others are much harder to explain. For example:

“This wasn’t here before,” The Second Man says. He stares down at the map, makes eye contact with Cecil, looks back to the house. All are as they were: unchanged, unfazed, inexplicable. “This house wasn’t _here_ before.”

“I know, right? Great job, navigator!” Cecil beams and claps him on the shoulder. 

The Second Man’s mouth falls open. “No. No, that’s not . . . I didn’t . . .”

But Cecil is already gone, bounding toward the house that shouldn’t exist. With a leap, he forgoes the single step up onto the porch and leans over the side of railing – the left side which, along with a large portion of the porch, hangs out over the drop. The Second Man’s stomach turns. 

“What are you doing?! Stop! Be careful --” 

“Appreciating the view! Absolutely not. And I am. In that order,” Cecil says, leans farther so that his stomach is perched on top of the railing. The whole arrangement is precarious at best, fatal at worst, and, sure, Cecil is strange and loud and his clothes are just this side of upsetting, but The Second Man doesn’t want him to _die_. The Second Man is a good person! He hopes! Plus, of the two of them, Cecil is the only one who seems to understand where they are and how they’re maintaining consistency with concepts like ‘linear existence’ and ‘the laws of physics.’ The Second Man figures he should voice this before anyone gets hurt and/or stranded in an unknown locale due to the death of their travelling companion 

“You can’t die! You’re the one who knows where we are!” The Second Man admits. (Though perhaps ‘admits’ is the wrong word. The Second Man’s cry has little in common with those half-whispered truths of Hollywood romances and even less in common with those weightless terrors that climb up from the stomach and into the mouth when a sound is not a sound but a heavy footstep, a crash . . . is that a shape, there in the dark? I think you should know something, before that thing gets us, before we go. This admission is not at all like that.)

Cecil’s eyes flicker down toward the valley; he smiles and steps back from the railing, and it is an odd, dangerous smile, and it is an odd, dangerous railing. After a few moments, he speaks. 

He says, “Well, I’m glad to be of some use,” though he does not sound glad. “And you’re right, a dead travelling companion’s no travelling companion at all, especially if his body has been made unrecoverable by whatever’s hiding down there.” He gestures with his head, indicating the valley, before continuing, “Though I think I should warn you, I’m no better with directions than you are. Just because I’ve read a few municipally approved books about Europe doesn’t mean I know everything there is to know. Far from it.” 

“Municipally approved?”

“Books.”

There is a coldness between them, probably because The Second Man has just attributed the value of Cecil’s continued existence to his (apparently lackluster) directional ability. Inadvertent? Of course. Rude? Probably. Understandable? The Second Man hopes so. 

“Can I ask you something?” Cecil says then, and The Second Man forgets to apologize for the reasons-I'd-be-upset-over-your-death thing. He will feel bad about this later; for now, he nods, watches as Cecil’s eyes narrow to a squint, as his indignation fades abruptly, jarringly, to helpless confusion. “Do you remember how you got here?” 

“I -- by train. Same as you.”

“Yes . . . I suppose,” Cecil doesn’t sound convinced. His face reflects this for only a brief moment before he stands straight, claps his hands together. “This, though!” He stretches both arms out wide, one pulling The Second Man to his side, one gesturing to the view from the hillside. “This is the life, right? Well, not The Life, obviously. This isn’t the collective, Jungian unconscious shared by every sentient being – ha, as if that were something you could _see_. No, this is a vacation!” 

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh, I can tell,” Cecil laughs. The arm around The Second Man’s shoulder tightens companionably. “Vacations as a concept can be quite difficult to understand. You spend your entire life in one place and suddenly you’re some place completely different with nothing but a map, a suitcase, and someone whom you know very little and trust even less. Absolutely terrifying! But I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it. Loosen up, won’t you?” 

He gives The Second Man’s shoulder a reassuring pat and then he is gone, deep into the heart of a house that shouldn’t exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you suffered through that: thanks. You're a trooper and I love you. Feel free to visit me on [tumblr dot com](http://itdefiesimagination.tumblr.com/), if that's a thing you'd like to do.


	2. Chapter 2

[The Second Man follows Cecil into the house that shouldn’t exist to find him sizing up a quaint lobby area. There is a long but uncomfortable-looking sofa opposite the entrance, two chairs beneath the windows to their right, and, across from those windows, a large desk with a semi-circular lip. The walls are dark, papered, similarly eclectic. Grey mountain light softens the edges of the room and casts muted strips of half-sunshine across the floor; cool mountain air circulates. A woman, who is used to these details and so does not think to notice or remark upon them, waits for the travelers to approach. Has been waiting for the travelers to approach.]

“Can we help you?” croons the woman. So far as The Second Man can tell, this woman is not a we but a she and her chin just barely clears the top of the check-in desk. (The Second Man assumes this is a check-in desk, as the words ‘check’ and ‘in’ have been carved into the wood body by penknife, perhaps, or by fingernails – generation after generation of fingernails, scraping bloody supplication first into varnish, then wood stain, then cedar flesh. The ‘—’ is just sharpied in.) 

The woman clears her throat and The Second Man shivers away all thought of fingernails and flesh and desks. Cecil, meanwhile, mills about the room, arms folded, pulling his coat in tighter; he studies the walls – framed, fading portraits and hung maps – with genuine interest, and when the woman coughs again, louder, this interest turns toward her. 

He smiles an apology. “Excuse us. He – my companion – he’s not good with pleasantries.” 

“We don’t need your pleasantries, dears,” says the woman. “We need your signatures. So.” She pulls a large book from beneath the desk and places it before the travelers with an ancient, dusty thump. Then, there is the sound of the front cover opening. Then, there is the sound of pages turning, turning, turning, and then – finally – not turning. 

“Sign on the right, here,” the woman explains, indicating a column of names hastily scribbled in a diverse spectrum of handwritings. “Then, here on the left, the full name and address of the family member you are closest to, emotionally.” 

The Second Man opens his mouth, though he’s not sure what he plans to say. 

Before he can find out, the woman amends, “If you have no living family, or if you were crafted slowly and deliberately from the same crystalline dust particles that bore our fledgling universe, just put a pet. Or something. We’ll figure it out.”

“We?” begins The Second Man, demanding at least one answer from this impossible, house-shaped tangle of question. “We? But you’re just –”

Cecil, bristling visibly, puts his hand up before The Second Man can finish. “Like I said,” he interrupts, leaning in toward the desk and the woman standing behind it. “Pleasantries. Not a strong suit.” At this, he and the woman share an eye roll and a weary smile, leaving The Second Man to flounder. His version of floundering happens to involve a pointed glare at Cecil, crossed arms, and considerable passive aggression. 

“I’m . . . sorry, did I miss something?” The Second Man asks, though he is not sorry. 

“They’re soul-merged,” Cecil says, as though this were the most obvious thing in the world. 

“ _What?_ ”

“Soul-merged. These women are soul-merged – two minds exerting equal control over one body. It’s perfectly natural. Frankly, I’m surprised that you have such a problem with it. And by surprised, I mean worried. And by worried, I mean a bit disgusted.” 

“I’m not – I didn’t,” The Second Man sputters, and, unintelligible as it might have been, it was the truth: he really wasn’t and he really hadn’t. Cecil, with his pursed lips and lidded eyes, doesn’t seem to understand this so The Second Man turns instead to the women behind the desk. 

“So you’re . . . ,” he squints, grasping at words. 

“Two people,” they say. 

_Interesting_ , he thinks. _A little bit terrifying_. “So, how do you . . . how . . . when you want to, say, pick up that book, do you – two – have to agree to move your arms at the same time? It’s – how do you decide who gets to talk?” 

Cecil closes his eyes in embarrassment, covers his face with one hand. “Please, stop talking.” 

“Seriously?” The Second Man laughs, but it is a bitter sound. “ _You’re_ telling _me_ to stop talking?” 

“You’re being incredibly offensive.”

“I’m _confused_!” 

“Just apologize. Please.”

“I’m sorry!” 

“Well, not to _me_!” 

“Dears,” the women interrupt. They place their hands, palms down, atop the guest roster. “Are you looking to stay the night? Because it’ll be dark soon, and no one should be out there on those paths when it’s dark. 'Specially nice boys like you. ‘Specially unarmed.” 

This gets Cecil’s attention. He blinks once, flicks his eyes toward the window where a breeze with no discernible source billows the curtain, blinks again. “Yes. Yes, if you can spare the room,” he sighs, his shoulder deliberately turned away from The Second Man, who still isn’t sure what he’s said or done to inspire such blatant ire, or why anyone would need weapons on this deserted hillside, or why the women seemed to think it would be dark soon when he was sure it’d been mid-afternoon when they’d entered the house. 

Cecil leans over the desk to pencil his name into the large, yellowing roster, then steps back to let The Second Man do the same. 

The Second Man hesitates with his writing utensil poised just above the page. “Sorry,” he begins, tentatively.

Cecil’s eyes narrow. 

“I – I’m genuinely sorry, really,” he says, glancing up at the women so as to convey the full extent of his apology, avoiding Cecil’s glare. “But why do you need the name of a family member?”

“The family member you are closest to, emotionally. And their address,” the women correct. 

“Yes. Those. Why do you need those? We – I – Cecil and I – we just need a place to stay.” 

Cecil makes an incredulous sound, as though the last of his good humor were leaving him in violent, spectacular fashion through his mouth. “Have you never stayed at a hotel before? I mean, _I_ haven’t, but I’ve read about it, at least. It’s _insurance_. They record the name and address of someone we care about so we don’t dine and dash. Although, in this case, we aren’t so much dining as sleeping in their back room. It’s so we don’t sleep in their back room and dash!” 

“What happens if we _do_ sleep in their back room and dash?” The Second Man asks. His eyes widen and he throws up his hands in the direction of the women. “Not that we’re going to!”

“We’re not going to!” Cecil echoes, throwing up his hands in similar fashion.

“Calm down, calm down, now, we trust you boys,” say the women. They smile, but irritation bites at the edges of their features. Their book gapes open, waiting. “And where would you run, anyhow? Back the way you came?” Their laugh is shaky and geriatric. “It’s just our policy here at House on холм.” 

“House on what?”

“On холм. Don’t’ worry he’s read about it.” The women gesture toward Cecil. 

“I’ve read about it.” 

“Oh.” The Second man forgoes all hope of understanding and puts the tip of his pencil back to the roster. As instructed, he scratches out his signature, his kid sister’s first and last name (he leaves out her middle name, just in case . . . just in case), and their home address. It feels strange, just a little too permanent; there's too much potential behind the words he has written, and he is afraid. 

Before he can step away from the book, his eyes drift up the page in the sort of voluntarily involuntary way eyes tend to drift up pages. Cecil’s name loops delicately above his. 

_Cecil Gershwin Palmer._

Across from that: a name. Female, The Second Man thinks but does not want to assume. 

Across from that: an address. Illegible, The Second Man thinks and knows this in his own perception to be true. It is a collection of numbers and runic symbols, and it hurts his eyes to look at. 

He looks up, tries to blink away . . . is that . . . _salt_ in his eyes? It certainly burns like salt, like swimming in the ocean with your eyes open; it falls from his tear ducts – sharp, white pin-pricks, slow at first and then in heavy streams and then in heavier streams. Don’t look at those numbers. Don’t _look_. He can’t see, clutches at his eyes, can’t stop it, can’t stop himself from crying out. And then – 

He comes back to himself. When he opens his eyes, there is a phantom burn, but there is no salt. Not on his face, or on his clothes, or on the floor – just Cecil and the women, staring at him like he’s lost his mind. Perhaps he has lost his mind, but perhaps he has not. That is reassurance enough, for now. 

“Everything alright, dear?” The women ask, leaning over their desk to get a better look at him. “You went funny there for a second.” 

The Second Man breathes out, puts his hands on his knees to center himself. His periphery informs him that Cecil is watching him, unfazed and wearing the cool indifference of a man who has seen this happen before, or, perhaps, the blank sociopathy of a man who hasn’t seen this happen before and doesn’t care now that he has. 

“Do you need water?” Cecil quirks an eyebrow, his tone apathetic. “You had some sort of episode. You should drink something.”

“I’m fine, I just . . .” 

“We’ll get you some water,” Cecil says. 

“He’ll get you some water,” the women say. 

“You’ll get me some water,” The Second Man says, but he doesn’t remember forming the words in his head before they’re out of his mouth. 

Looking up from the floor and/or straightening to his full height seems impossible, so he hears more than he sees. The dull thump of a book closing. The shush of that book as it is slid back into place. Metal scraping across varnished wood – their key, presumably. Cecil’s voice:

“Is there somewhere we could – ”

“There’s a sink in your room, dear. We’ll turn your water on in moment, so if you hear a clunking, rattling sound it might be the pipes. It might not be the pipes. But it might be the pipes.”

“Fantastic! Aw, thank you, um . . . oh, I’m terrible. Is there something I can call you ladies?” 

“Gretta and Pearl. And we already know _you_ , Cecil Gershwin Palmer. Of course we already know you. We didn’t even have to look at what you wrote in our book, we know so very much about you.” 

“How thoughtful! Thank you, Gretta, Pearl. If you’ll excuse us – ” 

The Second Man feels his collar tighten and suddenly he’s being hoisted up. It isn’t graceful, but he’s back on his feet, Cecil’s hand light on the back of his neck and steering him toward a small doorway to the right of the desk. He’s too disoriented to protest, though he does manage to blink away the briny crust he imagines must ring his eyes, does manage to crane his neck around to see Gretta and Pearl staring, watching them leave. If the last few pulses of hallucination hadn’t been jettisoning themselves from his system and compromising his ability to see things and to swear he had seen those things, he would’ve seen one of their pupils drift, just slightly -- a smile quirking one side of their face. He would've sworn to have seen this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's proverb: Two heads are better than one. Three heads are better than two. Four heads is the best number of heads.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (More of a scene than a chapter.)

[A staircase. A staircase spiraling up. A staircase spiraling down. One staircase. Two perspectives. An uncountable number of minds, all stalling at the top or bottom of that staircase, all unconsciously forming one of those perspectives. An uncountable number of feet, stalling at the top or bottom of that staircase, before disregarding both perspectives entirely and just doing as they were meant and made to do, just climbing or descending. 

If only our minds did what they were meant and made to do without stopping to consider such an unnecessary thing as perspective. If only this were our reality. _Imagine_ this were our reality. Imagine: decisions made based on immediate physical gratification; survival as a default, rather than a happy (statistically unlikely) accident; sentiment forgotten, children eaten for their nutritional value and their unexpected - unexpectedly pleasant - taste. 

Imagine a life of pure utilitarianism.

Imagine eating your children. 

Imagine.

Eating your children. 

That . . . was an awfully easy thing for you to imagine. And you imagined it awfully quickly. 

Now, forget about the children. Forget about eating those children, if you _can_ forget. 

Imagine your life as it is right now: confusing, conflicted, and chalk full of perspectives to which your existence owes both its meaning and its meanininglessness. 

Imagine a staircase. A staircase spiraling both up and down, as a glass can be both half empty and half full, as an existence can be both meaningful and meaningless. 

Imagine a staircase. For our purposes, this staircase spirals up and so too do the men spiraling with it. Imagine a staircase too big for a little house. Imagine the staircase of a lighthouse displaced to the stairwell of a hillside home displaced from an inlet on the coast of Northern Maine. Imagine that staircase. Try, at least.]

Cecil loops one arm around the shoulders of The Second Man to steady him. The staircase, which has its base in a little room (cupboard?) right off the main lobby area, is dangerously narrow, and the climb has proven somewhat long and somewhat difficult, what with The Second man suffering the more superficial effects of dehydration (dry mouth, disorientation, occult-ish salt tears), the time/space paradox crimping seven floors worth of steps into a one-floor hostel, and an onset of premature fibromyalgia that Cecil felt mainly in his knees. 

The Second Man manages to lift his death-dry tongue. “This would be easier without our bags,” he says, his tone implying that he means this as joke to lighten a mood, despite the fact that it has neither a set-up nor a punchline and is much too accurate an observation to be funny. The tight space does make it difficult for them to avoid the corners of their luggage. 

“Yes. Life _would_ be easier without material possessions,” says Cecil, his voice strained from the effort of supporting The Second Man. “But our current economic systems and our subsequent, societal adaptations have made such a life impossible. Also, I have a certain weakness for collectible jade tableware.” 

The Second Man lolls to the side, bracing himself against the stone wall of the staircase until Cecil pulls him back into a tight hold. 

“You’re in quite a state,” Cecil says. He faces forward, intent on reaching the top of the stairs, but The Second Man can make out an infant concern quirking his mouth down. It’s easier to lie with your voice, though, and Cecil sounds nothing if not clinically detached. The Second Man remembers why he's being dragged along like some sun-dried corpse in the first place. 

He winces, recalling the sting of salt in his tear ducts. The corners of his eyes are still raw. “Cecil, I’m sorry. I – I didn’t mean to look at your entry.” 

“But you did.”

“It was an accident – my eyes drifted.” 

Cecil sighs, adjusting his grip on one suitcase and situating the other so it rests more comfortably under his arm. “Far be it for me to say there are no accidents. The universe has too many moveable parts for its plans to go smoothly one hundred percent of the time.” He stop and sucks in a breath, releasing The Second Man so he can massage his own stiff knees. 

“But accidents are things that happen _to_ us – ow,” Cecil says. His head is down, still gingerly examining his knees, but The Second Man can hear his grimace. He can _literally_ hear it, which is . . . new. And impossible. 

Meanwhile, Cecil continues, “Everything else, everything we ourselves do is just . . . well, I’d say human nature, but . . . ” Cecil shrugs, and, for a moment, The Second Man is grateful for his current impairment, as it renders him unable to ask for any sort of elaboration and unable think too hard about what that elaboration might be. He hears Cecil’s smile – it is quiet and exclusive. 

“All of your actions and reactions serve a purpose. Just think of the millions and millions of years of evolution that went into making you and everyone like you,” Cecil says, standing to his full height and regarding the stairs with new vigor. “Odds are, eyes drift for a reason. Odds are, _your_ eyes drifted for a reason.” 

“Not that I’m blaming you,” he adds, hastily. “It was only natural. Like, literally in your nature – the desire to look at things you shouldn’t is probably encoded somewhere in your genetic infrastructure.”

“How do you know?” The Second Man asks. He hears a jaw tighten and set, groans as Cecil begins up the stairs again. 

“I enjoy science.” 

“Well, pseudoscience,” The Second Man almost corrects, but does not. After all, Cecil hasn’t brought up his politically-incorrect misstep with the lady – the ladies - downstairs, not since the scene at the front desk. There is a measured sort of peace between them as they scale the steps – a peace kept in balance by The Second Man’s inability to speak more than a few words at a time and Cecil’s sense of control (he knew when he was owed; he also knew how to treat those temporarily blinded by spells and Runes.) 

The Second Man doesn’t want to upset this balance, because he might not be able to make it up these stairs alone. 

They climb in silence for a while, which makes it easier for The Second Man to hear every time there is a line between Cecil’s eyebrows, every time his face contorts in arthritic pain. The sounds themselves vary in volume and intensity, and they are not human sounds. In fact, they are not like any sounds he’s heard before, but they always recall a visual, an expression, usually. Rarely: an emotion, translated into noise and by-passing his ears for his brain, like an endless stream of conversation with no source. He should probably find this more alarming than he does – put it down to dehydration. 

Cecil disappears around a curve and finally, _finally_ , there is a light at the top of the stairs. 

The top of the stairs. 

Finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Proverb: Keep your friends close and your enemies somewhere no one will ever think to look for them.


	4. Chapter 4

[The light, as it turns out, emanates from a single, antique bulb, protruding from the ceiling like a nose protrudes from a face. Like a nose, this bulb doesn’t work as well as it should, is unique among other features, and starts to look very strange when stared at for too long. If this bulb is the nose, then this ceiling must be the face. Like a face, this ceiling looks worse when covered in wood paneling. If this ceiling is the face, then the rest of the room must be the neck, chest, shoulders, arms, legs, torso, knees, backs of knees, etc., etc., etc. Like all these things, we might look at this room and wish it were less old, more robust, less dusty, more likely to fulfill some higher purpose, less creaky, more comfortable. Like all of these things, this room could stand to be a little more in some areas and a little less in others. Still, our travelers are happy enough to be on level ground, even if that ground squeaks and groans.]

“Tell me where you live,” says The Second Man, sitting on the edge of the second bed. The bed has recently been set with new sheets; this, combined with the strange, humid chill that seems to haunt old buildings, means that these sheets are a bit damp. The Second Man is taking off his shoes, and his words are a demand disguised as conversation.

“I live where people of my same means and temperament tend to live,” Cecil replies. He is unfolding a seemingly endless series of dress shirts, all garishly colored and patterned, and he is hanging them from a thin pipe which runs all the way along the far-left ceiling. Both the pipe and their rented room end at a small window that looks out over the gorge (as The Second Man has come to think of it.) It is raining outside. Or, at the very least, there are drops of something like water on the windows, and it’s not unreasonable to assume that those drops are falling everywhere else. Like most things: not certain, but not unreasonable.

Cecil looks to the window, looks to the drops that are not unreasonably rain, then looks back to the shirt he is currently hanging. A long journey suitcase-bound has left a crease across the stomach of the shirt. Cecil curls his lip, and The Second Man is tempted to reassure him that the neon textile lobster print distracts not only from the crease, but from most everything else in a ten-foot radius. As he adjusts the shoulders of the shirt over the hanger (so as to prevent more creasing), Cecil continues, “I suppose that place, the place I live, is somewhere between content mediocrity and unsatisfied success.” His words are a disguise demanding an end to conversation.

“ . . . ” says The Second Man. “As your friend, I’m telling you that your replies are long-winded and unsatisfactory.”

Cecil turns (too quickly?) to ask, “ _Are_ we friends?” He is holding yet more shirts, all on hangers, all different shades of neon. “I mean, I thought we might be,” he continued. It was a thought voiced aloud. Cecil shrinks back into himself. “I didn’t want to assume.”

The Second Man sets his shoes at a perfect right angle to his bed and, staring at those shoes, says, “I’m not sure.”

“Would you like to be friends?”

“Yes, I think,” says The Second Man, still staring at his shoes.

“Then we’re friends, I think,” says Cecil, still holding tight to his shirts.

After another beat of silence, the stillness ends and all previous motions commence: Cecil hangs his shirts; The Second Man looks at objects that are not his shoes. For example, he looks at the cobwebs dirtying one corner of the room, at the single, antique bulb jutting from the ceiling, at the white walls.

“Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

It doesn’t matter who said which. What matters is that both were said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Proverb: Time flies when you're having fun. Time drives when you're having trouble. When you're having doubts, time takes a train.


End file.
